Immanuel Kant's Philosophy - Bryan Magee & Geoffrey Warnock (1987)

Professor Geoffrey Warnock discusses the life and thought of Immanuel Kant in this episode of the 1987 series on the Great Philosophers with Bryan Magee, which can be found here: • The Great Philosophers...
#philosophy #kant #bryanmagee #epistemology

[@Philosophy_Overdose]

Yes, this is a reupload. I wanted a version with higher audio quality. I’ll still leave the previous video up as unlisted, so as to not break any external links with it. Sorry about any inconvenience!

[@ulrichfrank4270]

Your efforts are appreciated!

[@xenoblad]

Thanks man. Kant deserves no less.

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

You know with the audio, that you can pan one audio track all the way left, one in the center (mono) and then all the way panned right a slight reverbed track. And then automate the dry/wet amount -- timed to effect -- and the speaker. The audio can yet be improved. Just kidding. 😆

[@paul-filipilasca1632]

thank you for this great content! graceful and interesting discussions that are impossible not to inspire our minds

[@victorsauvage1890]

Yes@@paul-filipilasca1632

[@rangecow]

Yes. Yes. Oh. Yes. Yes.

[@spinoza2326]

Yes indeed!

[@obeidshariff4307]

😂

[@cinnamon__roll__]

Oh, listening to it was so entertaining :)

[@eugeorsi]

I got it only now 😂😂😂

[@michaelmeenan5522]

LMFAO 😂

[@christopherlees1134]

I love the style of these discussions. There’s no music, no noise at all, no sound, just too old guys having a very high-level discussion. If this was on nowadays, I’d make tea and set time aside every week for this and it would be my special time.

[@ClarenceHW]

Well said.

[@victorsauvage1890]

Thanks@@ClarenceHW

[@victorsauvage1890]

Thanks

[@HighMaintenancePS]

And yet it is too you today. As you watch this it is your now, if you know what I mean. Simply find all the material and study one hour per week.

[@r5u26d3]

Old style TV

[@willieluncheonette5843]

" I am reminded of a great German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He is a specimen of those people who are absolutely in the mind. He lived according to mind so totally that people used to set their watches, whenever they saw Immanuel Kant going to the university. Never - it may rain, it may rain fire, it may rain cats and dogs, it may be utterly cold, snow falling … Whatever the situation, Kant will reach the university at exactly the same time all the year round, even on holidays. Such a fixed, almost mechanical … He would go on holiday at exactly the same time, remain in the university library, which was specially kept open for him, because otherwise what would he do there the whole day? And he was a very prominent, well-known philosopher, and he would leave the university at exactly the same time every day. One day it happened … It had rained and there was too much mud on the way - one of his shoes got stuck in the mud. He did not stop to take the shoe out because that would make him reach the university a few seconds later, and that was impossible. He left the shoe there. He just arrived with one shoe. The students could not believe it. Somebody asked, “What happened to the other shoe?” He said, “It got stuck in the mud, so I left it there, knowing perfectly well nobody is going to steal one shoe. When I return in the evening, then I will pick it up. But I could not have been late.” A woman proposed to him: “I want to be married to you” - a beautiful young woman. Perhaps no woman has ever received such an answer, before or after Immanuel Kant. Either you say, “Yes,” or you say, “No. Excuse me.” Immanuel Kant said, “I will have to do a great deal of research.” The woman asked, “About what?” He said, “I will have to look in all the marriage manuals, all the books concerning marriage, and find out all the pros and cons - whether to marry or not to marry.” The woman could not imagine that this kind of answer had ever been given to any woman before. Even no is acceptable, even yes, although you are getting into a misery, but it is acceptable. But this kind of indifferent attitude towards the woman - he did not say a single sweet word to her. He did not say anything about her beauty, his whole concern was his mind. He had to convince his mind whether or not marriage is logically the right thing. It took him three years. It was really a long search. Day and night he was working on it, and he had found three hundred reasons against marriage and three hundred reasons for marriage. So the problem even after three years was the same. One friend suggested out of compassion, “You wasted three years on this stupid research. In three years you would have experienced all these six hundred, without any research. You should have just said yes to that woman. There was no need to do so much hard work. Three years would have given you all the pros and cons - existentially, experientially.” But Kant said, “I am in a fix. Both are equal, parallel, balanced. There is no way to choose.” The friend suggested, “Of the pros you have forgotten one thing: that whenever there is a chance, it is better to say yes and go through the experience. That is one thing more in favor of the pros. The cons cannot give you any experience, and only experience has any validity.” He understood, it was intellectually right. He immediately went to the woman’s house, knocked on her door. Her old father opened the door and said, “Young man, you are too late. You took too long in your research. My girl is married and has two children.” That was the last thing that was ever heard about his marriage. From then on no woman ever asked him, and he was not the kind of man to ask anybody. He remained unmarried."

[@pxp175]

I wish TV today was like this. We have declined greatly.

[@victorsauvage1890]

Yeah.

[@BobACNJ]

Bryan Magee is a national treasure. Thank you, Philosophy Overdose. His program was/is amazing.

[@victorsauvage1890]

Brian McGee is not what he represents himself as.

[@jmeden]

This is incredible coverage of the great Kant. One thing about Kant’s moral theory that bears reiteration: If you don’t adopt principles of moral action, then you are bound not only to violate the categorical imperative, but also to fall prey to your own ever changing whims and impulses. Hence, “moral conduct” in Kant’s terms is meant to place the individual person in the driver’s seat so that she may deliberately shape her own life. It’s a beautiful vision of morality, not just a technical argument penned by a long gone German philosopher.

[@rrichards3399]

t’s a beautiful vision, yes

[@victorsauvage1890]

Vanity has no place in philosophical discussion -- If you use 'she' instead of 'he' you look insincere.

[@victorsauvage1890]

What?

[@victorsauvage1890]

You've lost me.

[@joshuaolian1245]

@@victorsauvage1890i knew one of you would be in here 🙄 be misogynistic somewhere else

[@arthurgreene4567]

I’ve watched a lot of philosophy videos on youtube and this is the best. Very exciting actually.

[@draoi99]

Yes, this is really firing my imagination, the thought that there's a reality that we're shut out from due to the limitations of our senses is really fascinating.

[@growyourgood8459]

These are so very helpful, thank you for posting. Magee's questions and clarifications provide scaffolding for clear understanding.

[@demiurge1608]

another Xmas for contemplation. here after going through Magee’s excellent book, confessions of a philosopher, in my home town, near Dardanelles..21 December, Thursday, 2023..

[@exxzxxe]

Absolutely superb!

[@2425eryy]

I assume this was a television program. I'd be interested if these types of discussions still take place on TV.

[@l.w.paradis2108]

In France, they sometimes do. I'd be shocked if they didn't in London, Oxford, Cambridge.

[@jcookodessatx]

Came for the Kant, stuck around for Sir Geoffrey Warnock's Molly Bloom impression

[@debpalm8667]

Thanks for your content. Appreciate it.

[@abramcz]

I know I am being a dumb yank but I will never cease being entertained by how Magee pronounces the word "philosophy."

[@firstal3799]

Peasant

[@victorsauvage1890]

That sensibility is the bedrock of the U.S.A. -- Look at Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralf Waldo Emerson, Lionel Trilling, Joseph Campbell (1970s-1990s), F.D.R. who not only put Keynes's ideas into practice but as a great teacher of philosophy and politics and democratic methods -- used his 'Fireside Chats' to win over the mass of the population who -- though they were very sensitive to literary nuances, were not accustomed to technological theorising.

[@murugaiyannatarajan2217]

A wonderful discussion inspiring the listeners!

[@TheBigFella]

I could listen to Bryan Magee all day.

[@victorsauvage1890]

That's not McGee -- That's Warnock!

[@DC-zi6se]

Immanuel Kant is like the Einstein of philosophy. Immense and almost meteoric impact. Funnily enough... Einstein was deeply immersed in reading Kant when he was 13.

[@ewbell7071]

I am an observer, a philosopher only to my grandkids. That established, it seems both Heisenberg's scientific results and Godel's mathematical proofs generally lend credence to the philosophy of Kant.

[@johnbarclay88]

Superb discussion.

[@MarioRossi-eu5ot]

Great video!

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

He looks like a Kant scholar

[@dieselwiesel8893]

Excellent

[@kingstonchi]

I have barely heard of the name Kant, let alone learning about and from him. Thus I was constantly using the [The blind men and the elephant] story to refer to the fact that we cannot know what we are not equipped to know .. Why is this not brought up in this long discussion .. Was there something in this fable not consistent with Kant's thoughts ?

[@foresight6901]

Listening to philosophy is very liberating. Philosophy is virtuous because from which I can live a virtuous life. I dare to say this because I am religious philosophical.

[@lawrencearulanandam2032]

like to know what Bertrand Russel said on him. I LOVE HILOSOPHY though equally interested in Jiddu Krishnamurthi. Thank you so much for imparting knowledge.

[@bentheunissen6568]

Yees? Yes. Yeeess, yes. Yes

[@raymondcarere1174]

How we have learned to speak so importantly about the void.

[@parliecharker4316]

Begone, foul skeptic.

[@georgejo7905]

As I read Kant 40 years ago I stopped at the part of the transcendental aesthetics of space and time. The numinous object intrigued me. I geeked out and built a special photo stroboscope and after long building used it on moving subjects .It had 8 separate flash bulbs and I colored each differently with the result that i could edit each color separately. My original wonder at Kants aesthetics was what would god see if he could see the thing in itsself. The conclusion is that if he could then his eye would surround the object and it would be internal to him. My strobes only hintvat a possible 8 aspects of the subject but they transform the image. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iH3OpYZ7oamhhsksi=JWeHSgBpZEe8UTvz

[@Fucyallfr]

Made me laugh made me smile

[@honeyinglune8957]

is this the guy from bladerunner?

[@markhughes7927]

24:43 …presume that means that Kant was a ‘psycho-formal’ determinist (=material?) and not a speculative philosopher…

[@markhughes7927]

42:46 ..get the sense that Schopenhauer was similarly systemic in general conception..

[@markhughes7927]

34:34 ‘..act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it be a universal law…’ OR…the promise to Adam, the Noachian dispensation, 613 positive and negative commandments, the Ten Commandments, ecclesiastical lore/tradition, prophetic utterances, the establishment of Nations,… (would observe that the word ‘imperative’ possesses verbal force - it is active/consists in activism - but the qualifying word ‘categorical’ is an adjective - and would suggest on this basis that the formation ‘categorical imperative’ is invalid and may account for the blurred line in his philosophical descendent Marx between scientific enquiry (if that is what it was) and political activism.)

[@MsDomminus]

The body has no life of itself. Thought has no life of itself. By themselves, they are inert. They are activated by life. Life is the only Being. What is life? What is consciousness? When activated by life, thought creates the idea "I", a simulacrum of Being. Because thought is limited, the simulacrum, the representation, is limited, insufficient. Consciousness, which is life, cannot be measured - it is infinite, unknowable. Because life is infinite, the simulacrum, by reflection, wants to be complete too. So, it goes after power, position, fortune, and all the rest of it, never reaching completeness. In this ambition, it creates division, competition, wars and destruction. In this movement of becoming, the simulacrum has continuity, with all its miseries. Do I depend on thought to be alive and conscious? Who or what am I? Can I measure who or what I am? With which instrument? Am I not the unknowable, the infinite, the timeless?

[@michaelah8538]

intresting the use of the word "aquainted" with...knowledge?!

[@daniyal72]

I ❤ bryan magee but this gentleman was amazing. I wish he was allowed to carry on about synthetic apriori, the world in itself and the observer. Magee for heaven sakes let him speak, he is amazing.

[@honahwikeepa2115]

I'm a Lesbian tractor. A blue one.

[@HighMaintenancePS]

You’re not. Tractors are entirely asexual.

[@CesarClouds]

Interestingly, Russell did not consider Kant the greatest of modern philosophers.

[@bozdowleder2303]

He said a good deal worse. He called him a mere misfortune and said that if he had seen more of the world he'd have doubted whether we make up such detail in our heads. Even in ethics he said that Kant had the bad eminence of combining the worst mistakes of theorists and practical moralistic in his ethical philosophy

[@oioi9372]

Well, Russel was projecting a lot right there😂

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

Russell wasn't even worthy of setting Kant's clock.

[@bozdowleder2303]

@@FightXScience-wh6kx I wouldn't say that. He was actually the first worthwhile philosopher since Hume to pose or solve genuine problems. Analytic Philosophy has fallen on hard times lately with a lot of irrationalism and a number of very bad ideas starting with Kripke and the modal realists especially, Quine's rather misplaced skepticism, and of course the pragmatists and their denial of(or refusal to discuss) objective truths. But none of this stands up to scrutiny. The work done by Russell and Wittgenstein do, and even their failures, such as in philosophy of mathematics remain unsolved. The Continental Philosophy between Hume and Russell only served to obfuscate everything and led directly to mid-twentieth century postmodernism whereas existentialism is really a specie of armchair philosophy - occasionally devolving into self-help style rhetoric

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

@@bozdowleder2303 Analytic Philosophy was dead in the water beginning with Russell. My real gripe is that committing philosophic thought to a doctrine of external relations was a methodological error on the part of Russell. While I'm no fan of postmodernism or existentialism, the choice isn't between Analytic and 'Continental' philosophy alone of course. Indeed, there are antecedent intellectual traditions on the continent (that Russell was distinctly aware of since he had been educated by the British Idealists and was colleagues with Whitehead) that don't subscribe to that doctrine of external relations and that sort of methodological atomism. The tradition of German idealism to which Kant belonged, which it's apex in Hegel and in the philosophic thought which grew out of that social mileau like Marxist philosophy, tended to view natural and social reality as a confluence of relations and activities. That seems to be a much firmer foundation for both the social and natural sciences, as well as the humanities and philosophy.

[@giantessmaria]

Thanks, wonderful discussion...! Anyone who has ever taken a heroic dose of magic mushrooms understands exactly what Kant is referring to when he says; true reality can not be known by reason. We have been conditioned since the beginning of language, that everything around us can be perfectly described by reason. Man created language, logic and reason in attempts to describe and understand worldly matters and communicate with one another. But you run into problems thinking that the true nature of reality is able to be apprehended by this means. There are psychedelics which if taken in a sufficient dosage, break down barriers which we have imprisoned ourselves with through millennia of conditioning our organism in the way in which we've done. We possess a faculty of 'knowing', through these psychedelics, which cannot even be translated into language, yet reality appears to us in a way that is undeniably real.

[@pxp175]

I don't think we "have been conditiond", nor do we need to saturate our brain in serotonin to realize that what we presive through our scenes, is not reality, but it best, a perspiration of reality. It is true that it is natural to assume that we precive reality as it is, but that is a testimony to our ignorance. Most of us watch Netflix and not this 😅.

[@teebeedahbow]

Walt Disney, and Immanuel Kant...

[@fabiodeoliveiraribeiro1602]

Immanuel Kant was an enlightenment enthusiast and realized very clearly that freedom of conscience and expression would play a central role in the political system that was emerging to oppose monarchical absolutism. The censorship of books and other publications and the criminalization of opinions or political preferences considered dangerous or seditious (crime of lese majeste) horrified Kant. And unlike many philosophers of the same time he was able to articulate this in a sufficiently open and intelligible way without worrying too much about reactions from the Prussian authorities. The fact that he lived and wrote his books in a peripheral city in Prussia and did not demonstrate revolutionary ambitions seems to have guaranteed Kant greater freedom than a philosopher would have had in Paris or even London in the same period. As we live in democracies in which politics absorbs and resolves publicly debated disagreements with broad freedom of the press and expression, our countries are, in a way, legitimate offspring of Kant's philosophy. But unfortunately, and this needs to be emphasized here, the intense spread of Fake News is destroying both the possibility of distinct groups of people sharing common factual truths and the belief that the space in which politics is created must be protected and expanded. The algorithms of antisocial networks are intrinsically mortal enemies of Kant's philosophy.

[@victorsauvage1890]

You are taking nonsense -- Read a little shakespeare

[@marccawood]

Here we have the world’s first mention of a „well founded presupposition“. 😂

[@timmccormack710]

Culture is an operating program, incorrect program incorrect answers.

[@jamesbarryobrien3514]

Warnock - excellent . He sticks to reason , and keeps his own beliefs nicely apart . He is of course a follower of Kant . But what l really like about him is he has 0 showboating and as l say he sticks to reason . Usually somewhere along the line the personality of the one who discusses enters the frame but not l feel with this one ,he enjoys keeping himself apart from everything ,and he is very intelligent . His gaze is like an eagle's gaze ,sharp and penetrating . Kant you must try to understand from the point of view of freewill , does it exist or does it not ? Kant says freewill does not exist its all part of a great law ,which determines everything . But within this great law there is still room for the exception to the rule .lets call it GOD's gift to Man . Even though the law of reality strikes everyone equally so the same GOD because GOD is GOD , the exception exists allowing for the gift to exist . As they say the exception makes The Rule 💚

[@gavaniacono]

Macgee explains things far more clearly than the expert philosopher, and this is another example. Macgee's explicative apparatus, we could say, matches the sensory apparatus of the average subject far better than the complicative apparatus of the specialist philosopher!

[@khizaralishahone]

interesting; can we say that a person whose explicative apparatus matches much closely with the sensory apparatus of the audience can be a great teacher (by profession)?

[@gavaniacono]

@@khizaralishahone indeed we can, and should!

[@adamant5906]

Magee came from the working class. I think that's significant. Maybe he appreciated directness more because of his background.

[@garetcrossman6626]

Yes, Magee is consistently brilliant at recapitulating and clarifying the conversation. Here, though, I think the guest is equally sensitive to the audience.

[@khizaralishahone]

@@garetcrossman6626 Inspired from this playlist, I recently read his autobiography

[@VCT3333]

I want to read the original but I Kant read German. 😞

[@hjalmarschacht2559]

The brilliant Bryan Magee clearly knew more about Kant's philosophy than the "expert" he was interviewing. I wish the late Bryan Magee himself had just talked about Kant ... or better yet, had written a book on Kant.

[@Joseph-nw3gw]

agree with Bryan Mcgee is a gem.

[@conallgeneral8136]

Very interesting discussion. However they make a very stupa point towards the end in discussing why Kant wrote in German and that this was a great barrier to understanding him. Not if you read German ! Why don’t you put the effort in to learn another language - develop another sensory tool as Kant might say , in german of course !

[@arush2746]

I. Kant

[@czarquetzal8344]

There is even a gossip that Kant is not even a human being but an alien. 😂

[@davideastman928]

The carpet is so bad, it must refute all that is said

[@stephenridley1153]

Kant cannot cant

[@markhughes7927]

38:19 Yes! neoliberal atheist prelates - nay current popes (2024) - embrace secular neo-Kantian rationalism with its inherent and ultimate fractions (LBQT +++++++) and in doing so abandon the religious unity and mysterium of Sacramental communion - that is unless you are Pope Benedict who ran away from the demons inhabiting such a world - and who had - incidentally - written a Ph.D thesis ‘Refuting Kantian conclusions’!❤

[@francisconsole3892]

Immanuel Kant....but Genghis Khan

[@sirbarringtonwomblembe4098]

He was a real pissant, who was very rarely stable. As for Heidegger ..... Sorry. I made a bit of a Kant of myself there.

[@auf23]

Professor, your ideas are complicated, people won't understand you...

[@Jspore-ip5rk]

In all honesty they are quite simple and straight forward; provided you are familiar with basic philosophical concepts

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

Lots of people understand what is being said. Your statement says something more about your current capacities for digesting high level philosophy, rather than the incomprehensible nature of the content.

[@HiFivedInTheFace]

I've never seen a dude so in need of a mustache

[@martinmartin1363]

What is Is and what is not is not, Kants understanding is we see the world with our limited senses we give them names but we have no understanding what it really is, and what we cannot perceive isn’t worth knowing because we have no understanding of the unknown,but something didn’t come from nothing, miraculous events happen daily how do we explain them away we can’t according to kant this is the unknown, the bible talks of God and explains creation and Jesus is God eternally begotten of the father who is God through the Holy Spirit who is God a triune god , Kants only explanation is everything is an illusion, everything could have been created 5 minutes ago and we see an illusion of a billion years of history, but something had to create the illusion, we can’t really understand anything really the sciences are theories and a theory is an assumption not a fact, except for one fact how did something come from nothing.

[@user-ww5mu2ot9e]

theology cope

[@tombouie]

Hmmmmm ..... much like religion, I do quite enjoy philosophy however ; Much like religious professionals, most academic professionals might be well-described as academic historians far-from critical to resolving society’s current/future difficulties. Too bad too, because it would seem both have quite the potential to, quite strange. Oh of course, any constructive criticism of my own constructive criticism is quite welcome.

[@garetcrossman6626]

Happy to correct you. All thought is philosophical, in the sense that all thought can be shown to be conditioned by the same impediments. What we think of as science is A philosophy,; the philosophising that underwrites science is forgotten and invisible but nonetheless constitutes the historic genealogy of the architecture of the ideology of modern science. Science's amnesia of its origins explains the hegemony of scientism.

[@tombouie]

@@garetcrossman6626 Good points, I mean no insult however modern philosophers seems more of intergenerational Care-takers/Curators/Hobbyists/Free-Riders/etc of philosophy whether than doers/creators/engineers/demostrators/etc of it especially compared to millennia old philosophers (ex: Socrates). Oh, the same for most of academia too (ex: ivory-tower academia). For example I was much more inspired to become a military physicist by Dr Who (Baker) than all of academia. To me physics is about doing it & especially as a means/tool for society. Oh I've done great things for peace in the world as well as war (a little like Dr Who I guesses ;).

[@michaelmeenan5522]

But if I advanced a criticism of your critique and then invited others to criticize our criticisms, both individually and collectively, would I not then be opening the door to an unhappy infinite regress? To whom shall we accord the final word and coronate the master philosophic blaster of our age, yea, of our lifetime?

[@parliecharker4316]

@@michaelmeenan5522 Well, to the one that is correct, of course. lol

[@martinmartin1363]

Kant didn’t deny God because without God there’s no soul , no god,no devil,no heaven, no Hell,therefore sin and morals are a concept of the mind an illusion it’s all unknowable, but still the question remains how did something come from nothing.

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

What a series of irrational claims. We can't substantiate claims about the soul, heaven, etc., according to Kant. So, no, those unsubstantiated claims can't be the reason for his alleged belief in God.

[@martinmartin1363]

@@FightXScience-wh6kx I deny your claims because they are based on no facts

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

@@martinmartin1363 No facts? The Kantian antinomies in the Critique of Pure Reason are all about that. One cannot know the thing in itself, according to Kant. We could, according to him, never prove God, the soul, etc. for that reason. Those are his views, easily confirmed with a quick Google and even described in this VERY VIDEO!! Did you not pay attention?

[@martinmartin1363]

@@FightXScience-wh6kx Reason is not fact l deny your kantian ideology and the definition of a theory is an assumption a idea a guess, basically a lie based on no facts

[@FightXScience-wh6kx]

Dum dum, you made a claim ABOUT Kant. I pointed out that Kant didn't believe those things. You now say you reject my Kantian ideology. Have you had a stroke recently dunce?

[@dennisfarris4729]

He could if he tried.

[@zilvinasstasys9825]

Do nothing until it's become "good".Pure Kantizmus😂.

[@bryanutility9609]

All this Kant “what is is” seems like Bill Clinton babble 😂. Bring me back to Nietzsche.